US confiscates Iranian crude from tanker Suez Rajan in first criminal case of its kind

The US Justice Department says it has disrupted an Iranian oil shipment by seizing more than 980,000 barrels of crude carried by the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Suez Rajan, gCaptain reports. The ship was seized in April on its way to China and waited two and a half months off Texas before the cargo was unloaded by ship-to-ship transfer. Suez Rajan Limited pleaded guilty on 19 April to conspiring to violate US sanctions law and was given three years' corporate probation and a fine of almost $2.5 million. Operator Empire Navigation agreed to cooperate and bring the oil to the US. Prosecutors allege entities tied to Iran's Revolutionary Guard used falsified documents and ship-to-ship transfers to sell it.

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